Stop Smoking Way

Free programs to help people stop smoking get snuffed out.

Free programs in Lorain, Huron and Erie counties that helped people quit smoking and prevented minors from starting to smoke are ending this month following a move by Ohio lawmakers in May to dissolve the group that funds them, the Ohio Tobacco Prevention Foundation.

Thousands of adults and school students who learned about the dangers of tobacco and received counseling and nicotine replacement therapy will not be helped after June 30, according to Alexandria Cruey, a spokeswoman for the American Lung Association, which ran grant-funded programs in Erie, Huron, Ashland and Richland counties.

The OTPF and its $270 million endowment were liquidated in May by the Ohio legislature, which steered $230 million to a statewide jobs stimulus program and $40 million to the Ohio Department of Health for programs to fight tobacco use.

Pending the outcome of a legal challenge to the funding move, the money has been frozen, ending programs that have been in place since 2000, when the OTPF was formed with money from a legal settlement from big tobacco companies.

More than 1,500 students in fourth through eighth grades in Erie County and more than 1,000 fourth- through eighth-graders in Huron County attended Word of Mouth training in 2007, Cruey said. The program used a curriculum developed by the ALA and the Cleveland Clinic, taught in classrooms or over a Web site, that helped students understand the effects of tobacco use and their ability to refuse it.

In Lorain County, a $106,000 grant from the OTPF for anti-tobacco programs scheduled to start July 1 was recently canceled, according to Mary Jo Burns, program director of tobacco prevention programs for the Lorain City Health Department. Burns said her job is ending today.

”This was the worst-case scenario,” she said.

An OTPF-funded statewide telephone quit line received about 1,200 calls from Lorain County from July 2007 to this month, according to Burns.

”You’d get a counselor assigned to your case,” Burns said. ”They would set up a schedule for later calls, advise the client on what they needed to do to quit and set a date to stop.” Clients could also get free nicotine patches, in four-week increments, she said.

”Counseling and nicotine replacement therapy are very effective together,” Burns said. Therapy could be in the form of a patch or a prescription medicine.

”(The therapy) would take away withdrawal symptoms, and the counseling helps change behaviors and routines,” Burns said. ”Smokers have very specific routines, like getting up in the morning and having the first cigarette while sitting on the edge of the bed. You try to break those habits.”

Lorraine VanDyne, ALA program coordinator for Erie County, said she had provided Firelands Regional Medical Center with free resources and kits for them to teach the Freedom From Smoking adult cessation program, which included nicotine replacement.

VanDyne said the Freedom From Smoking Program normally costs $75, plus the cost of nicotine replacement therapy. But the OTPF grant allowed the ALA to provide vouchers for a prescription nicotine therapy in tablet form that was usually $115 per prescription that lasts 30 days, she said.

”Now, all the programming we’ve done will cease,” she said. VanDyne will lose her job June 30. She and Burns are among 400 to 600 people who will be unemployed next month, according to estimates by the Ohio Health Commissioners, Burns said.

”It’s ironic that jobs are being lost in order to create jobs,” Burns said.

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Tags: Stop Smoking